Jazz pianist prepared to boogie at UM concert

If you’ve talked to many pianists, you know that one of the recurring comments they make is: “There was always a piano at home.” It’s a small statement, but it generally bodes well because it suggests that music was important to the household, to the family spirit and to the formative years.

So when you ask Michael Kaeshammer, a boogie-woogie pianist and rising star in Canada, about his origins as a pianist, he will, indeed, answer: “There was always a piano in the house.” His comment makes it clear that music was as much a part of his childhood as the ABCs and multiplication tables. It helped, too, that Kaeshammer (pronounced “case-hammer”) watched videotapes of TV jazz shows when he was a small boy growing up in Germany.

“My father was a pianist and made my brother and me watch jazz shows he recorded the night before when we were in bed,” said Kaeshammer, who will perform Friday at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono. “We didn’t want to. But then one night he brought home a particular record by a guy in Hamburg. It was piano solo, and it was live. I never heard anything like that before.”

The recording featured boogie-woogie tunes by the legendary Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson. Kaeshammer, who had been studying classical music for seven years and was 13 at the time, was transfixed – not to mention transformed. From that day forward, jazz became his musical mission, and boogie-woogie eventually became his signature style.

Kaeshammer, who was 18 when his family moved from Germany to British Columbia, had early success as a professional musician and is currently touring with a trio through Canada, making occasional dips into the United States. The programs, he said, included his original tunes and arrangements of works by Fats Waller, Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin.

“When I go to a concert, I like to see good musicians. I like to see that they have fun, that it’s not uptight. And when I am in the audience, I like to be incorporated into the show. Sometimes you see people who think they are too good to relate to the audience. When I play, I like talking to the audience. Every night, you have to win them over. You have to start from scratch and make them feel it’s all right to clap or laugh or cough. Music is a form of communication. It’s just like speaking a language. It’s something to share. It’s very emotional and can make people sad or joyful,” said Kaeshammer, who is now 25.

Unlike bassist Simon Fisk and drummer Damian Graham, who travel with their instruments, Kaeshammer has to adjust to a new piano at every venue. Recently, he showed up for a concert in a small community in northern Ontario and was offered a digital keyboard for his performance. In the back of the room, he noticed an old piano and ran his fingers up and down the keyboard. It wasn’t in perfect tune and some of the keys didn’t work, but Kaeshammer enlisted five men to move the instrument onto stage, where he played the piano in a concert later than night.

“That’s the fun of being on the road,” said Kaeshammer. “When I left for this trip, I was looking forward to playing a lot of pianos. Sometimes you get a beautiful grand piano and it sounds perfect. Then, the next night, you have to make it sound perfect.”

Of course, when the tour ends, there is always a piano – a Yamaha grand, in fact – at home.

Michael Kaeshammer will perform 8 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono. For tickets, call 581-1755 or 800-MCA-TIXX.